In Italy, Kidnapping A Centuries-old Specialty

OPPIDO MAMERTINA, Italy — The lonely ordeal of Alessandra Sgarella, 39, began one afternoon eight months ago when she was abducted near the entrance of her apartment building in an exclusive neighborhood of Milan.

Her husband, returning home later that evening, found her eyeglasses and newspaper on the sidewalk.

Six weeks later, the kidnappers issued their first demand for ransom from Sgarella's family, which owns a trucking business and is reasonably well off. The kidnappers wanted $28.5 million.

A controversial Italian law prohibits the payment of ransom, and authorities promptly froze the family's assets, but the family began negotiating with the kidnappers through intermediaries.

In mid-June, Sgarella's family offered more than $2 million for her release. The kidnappers countered with an $8.5 million demand.

The first real break in the case did not come until the end of June when investigators arrested seven members of a family from the remote Calabrian town of Oppido Mamertina and announced they were close to solving the case.

But the trail has gone cold again. Now police fear that the original gang of abductors may have sold Sgarella to another gang.

Kidnapping for profit has been a local specialty in some parts of Italy for centuries. Today, kidnapping rings operating from the island of Sardinia and from the Calabrian hinterlands in southern Italy continue to perplex and embarrass Italian law enforcement authorities.

Since 1969, 692 people have been kidnapped in Italy. Of those, 479 eventually were released by their captors, while 132 managed to escape on their own. Eighty have been murdered. More than 3,300 suspects have been arrested by police.

Some of the kidnappings are carried out by various mafia organizations, but most are the work of criminal bands not connected to the mafia, according to Italian police.

The Sicilian mafia, the Cosa Nostra, used to be heavily involved in kidnapping but made a decision in the 1970s to get out of the business because it drew too much police attention to its other, more lucrative activities.

"It is usually not so difficult to find the authors of these kidnappings," said Pierluigi Vigna, the "super prosecutor" who coordinates Italy's anti-mafia investigations.

The kidnap gangs tend to be large and cumbersome, often as many as 50 members, and they leave a messy trail, Vigna said.

"What is much more difficult," he said, "is to find the victim." Sometimes the hostages are sold from one criminal group to another so that even if the original band of abductors is caught, they may not know where the victim is hidden.

But more than the terrain, it is the inhabitants of this remote, impoverished region that frustrate the police.

"The omerta is a very real problem," said Vigna, referring to the mafia's traditional code of silence. "Even people who have not participated in the kidnappings do not think it is necessary to tell what they know," he said.

After the seven Oppido Mamertina suspects were arrested, more than a thousand police descended on this sleepy town of 3,500 that has endured 20 mafia murders since 1992.

With helicopters, dogs and foot patrols, they combed the mountainsides but came up with nothing. Forty-eight houses in the town were searched. Nothing.

Mayor Bruno Barillaro, a dapper man in a gray suit, said the suspects were members of a well-known family in town. The family, he said, was in the olive oil business, not the mafia.

"I would be happy to tell you, yes, I expected it from them, but in truth, I never expected such things from these people," he said. He hotly rejected any suggestion that the local suspects had been aided by a conspiracy of silence. He offered another reason for local residents' diffidence toward the police investigation.

"The various families in Oppido, we know each other well," he explained. "It is true that some families are in odore di mafia--have the smell of the mafia--but we say nothing because we don't know the facts. One must have facts before making accusations."

Luigi Misale, a member of the town council, acknowledged that the Calabrian mafia, known as the 'Ndrangheta, was an intimidating presence in Oppido, but insisted that if anyone knew the whereabouts of Sgarella, that person would find a way to alert the police.

"If fear would lead us to hide ourselves, our consciences would lead us to denounce the kidnappers in an anonymous phone call or letter," he said.

One of the more gruesome techniques kidnappers use to pressure the families of victims to negotiate is to slice off a piece of the victim's ear and send it to the family.

Earlier this year, in another high-profile kidnapping, this technique resulted in a monumental embarrassment for Italian postal authorities when first the ransom instructions and later a package containing a slice of businessman Giuseppe Soffiantini's right ear took weeks to arrive.